Monday, February 27, 2012

By Ralph Benko: "The gold standard is a modern, digital, information-sharing, global operating standard. Moreover, it is a stable, networking, efficient, price transmission system in the form of a stable international monetary standard," says Lewis E. Lehrman.

Big media is paying attention to proposals for a new Gold Commission. This concept first was floated by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and reported by The Weekly Standard. A Gold Commission then was proposed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as part of his (winning) campaign for South Carolina. Lehrman (with whose scholarly institute this writer professionally is associated) was mentioned in both instances.

Rep. Ron Paul -- now campaigning for president, in large part, on the gold standard -- and Lehrman both served on the Reagan Gold Commission. The Commission met well before the good Dr. Milton Friedman distanced himself from the theory known as monetarism. Following a theory much in vogue the majority of the Commission endorsed the paper standard. Dr. Paul and Mr. Lehrman filed a minority report calling for the restoration of a stable dollar defined by law as a certain weight of gold: the gold standard. Republished, The Case for Gold remains readily available from the Mises Institute and the Cato Institute.

The gold standard is no atavism, neither clipper ship nor ox cart. Under the gold standard we will have checking accounts and credit cards and currency, not carry around purses filled with gold coins to make our daily purchases. Legal gold convertibility simply kept, and will again keep, the dollar's value stable over time. There is as much gold per capita now as there was at the height of the classical gold standard; claims that there is "not enough gold" betray a deep ignorance of the workings of the system.

There are a lot of reasons for taking gold seriously, now. Here are three:
1. The gold standard is Constitutional money; paper is not. The Constitution contemplated money defined as precious metal. As delegate George Read observed at the Constitutional Convention, the power to issue paper money was seen "as alarming as the mark of the Beast in Revelations."

2. The gold standard will control spending. Congress will spend every cent it can get its hands on. To constrain it we must cut off its access to money. There are only three ways in which it can get its hands on material amounts our money: taxing , borrowing and printing. We must keep up the fight on taxes and borrowing. But the most pernicious way of getting our money is by "printing" it. The gold standard locks away printing press money.

3. The gold standard creates widespread prosperity. As historian Brian Domitrovic wrote: "there is the record of 1878-82 and its own run of some 40% growth... Rather, in the four years before 1878, growth had come in at 13%; in the previous ten years, growth had totaled 49%. In other words, 1878-82 was a mega-acceleration from a high base.

"And after? Over the next decade, another historic expansion of 49%. 49% on top of 40% on top of 49%, 1868 to 1892. That's registering 'the strongest output growth...in US history outside of wartime.'

"Regarding policy, there was one major shift that occurred in these heroic years in the latter 19th century. In 1879, the U.S. went back on the gold standard.

"A modern, digital, information-sharing, global operating standard," says Lehrman. Let's boot up that commission and take a really close look as to how gold might be the "golden bullet" to get an American economic miracle roaring. Gold: Dignity, Prosperity, and Liberty.

Ralph Benko, who testified on the constitutional and legal history of US monetary policy before the Reagan Gold Commission, is the senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action and advisor to and editor of The Lehrman Institute's thegoldstandardnow.org. He is co-author, with Charles Kadlec, of The 21st Century Gold Standard available free for downloading atagoldenage.com.Tags:Ralph Benko, Gold StandardTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Political observers noted he was the most liberal member of the United States Senate, and many believed he was a radical left-wing zealot if not an ideological revolutionary. The terms socialist, progressive, and Marxist were generally thrown about to describe the eloquent, little-known Obama as his unlikely quest for the presidency unfolded.

After three years in office, it is evident to all but his most ardent supporters that the President of the United States is a strident Marxist. His forceful policies, actions, and thunderous attacks on freedom are straight from the writings of Karl Marx. The evils of Capitalism, state control of business, redistributive change to achieve social justice, and the diminishing of personal, economic and property rights are among the daily rants from Obama and his administration.

Marx believed in socialism, and that communism would eventually follow. He argued that social theorists and underprivileged people should topple capitalism and bring about socioeconomic change. This is the heralded ‘change we can believe in’ touted by Obama.

To realize these goals a good Marxist builds a totalitarian government using his strongest pillar, class warfare. Obama spends every waking moment in and out of the Oval Office infusing doses of collectivism and government dependency. Not a day passes by and not a speech airs that the President fails to spew his poisonous hatred toward the job-creating, successful, financially secure members of American society. These are the people Marx called the Bourgeoisie; Barack Obama simply uses his favorite pejorative, ‘the rich.’

The Founders intended that every American, working under the rules of our Republic, be free to pursue their own ideas of riches, unburdened from government interference, coercion, and intimidation. Obama believes that no such right exists.

The primary difference between liberalism, progressivism, socialism, Marxism, and communism, is the measure of force, treachery, evil, and time with which they inject their poison into the people. The philosophies are as one with a belief in massive federal control over the masses and restricted or nonexistent personal, economic, and property rights. Indeed, over the years many of the leftists found the need to glide flippantly between the labels depending upon their short or long-term goals. The natural progression is, however, as Marx predicted, toward communism, the most evil and tyrannical form of government.

How then, one might ask, did a radical leftist like Obama rise to the presidency of the most powerful country on earth without proper vetting and reporting by the media? After all, they should be free-roaming, impartial referees in the political arena.

The answer lies in the second most important pillar of tyrannical government, the control of information, with the ability to indoctrinate the populace. Fortunately, for Barack Obama and most unfortunately for the country, he had compliant and corrupt media kneeling at his feet, fawning over a man who sent a thrill up their leg.

It was love at first sight for the biased, mainstream, left-wing media. Barack Obama represented everything for which their palpitating hearts could beat, and wistful minds could envision. Here was a man with whom they held a kindred ideology, a man who spoke with dynamic energy, and was politically marketable to a disappointed and restless electorate. He also had the uncanny, chameleon-like ability of blending in with his surroundings and taking on the same appearance of the group or audience to whom he was playing. Thus, he could be all things to all people.

By the way, he was African-American.

It was so perfect. It would be simple to shield Obama the man from criticism by merely claiming his opponents were racists. Equally, they could ignore or mask his leftist ideas, extremist friends, allies, political writings, and an incomplete personal history using the same ploy. The media hoisted the radical community organizer from Chicago, fitted him with a halo, and placed him triumphantly in the White House. It was a marketing coup.

In ascending order of repugnancy, he began his quest for coronation by feigning traditional, conservative, American values, then slipped into his ‘spreading the wealth,’ social justice, and racial politics. He subsequently spent three years in office hoisting the battle flag of class warfare and preaching the evils of capitalism.

He calms the squirming resistance to tyranny by using the government’s most powerful anesthetics, money, and promises of social justice. The more persistent and vocal critics, the Tea Parties, are demeaned, painted with that dreaded brush of racism, and dismissed as kooks. The more America resists; the more Obama reassures the country that freedom is a failure, and that he is working for our own good and in our best interests.

The antidote to liberty is as it has invariably been, coax more and more people into ceding their freedom for a promise of security and comfort. It is through this deadly portal that the masses always enter on their way to complete enslavement. Barack Obama understands fully the deceit, organization, and propaganda necessary to complete the ‘transformation’ of a once proud, independent, and powerful nation into one of whining beggars subservient to a Master State.

Government and dictators grow by devouring the rights of its citizens. Either the people hold power or the government holds power, and our Constitution very clearly places supremacy in the hands of the people. Without a doubt, Barack Obama is hell-bent on usurping that authority. Given another five years, he very likely will succeed in closing an iron gate of tyranny behind a dormant and disinterested America.
-------------Jim Mullen is a TEA Party Republican conservative activist and writer in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He also writes for the Parkersburg Conservative Examiner, the ARRA News Service, and his personal site, Freedom For Us Now. Tags:Jim Mullen, Marxism, Barack Obama, Obama closing the iron gate of tyranny, antidote to liberty, class warfareTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Determined to keep Americans drowning in debt, Obama proposes to accelerate federal spending $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.8 trillion in 2022, a whopping increase of 53 percent. By spending more than $45 trillion in the next 10 years, the most generous accounting would assume $6.7 trillion would be added to the federal deficit, bringing debt-to-GDP ratio who a crushing 76.5 percent.

The slow ending of the Afghanistan war gave the Obama Administration room for an $800 billion Washington-style accounting gimmick, where borrowed money that would not have been used is counted as saved. In terms of actual cuts in defense spending, Obama is shifting the focus from what is known to work in missile defense to developing futuristic missile intercepts which will require years of experimenting at great expense to taxpayers while a vulnerable America waits.

It has become obvious that America faces increasing nuclear threats from hostile regimes like Iran and North Korea. In June, Iran announced it was planning to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, which can easily be converted to weapons-grade material. This week, Iranian President Ahmadinejad plans a major announcement for Iran’s advancement in its atomic program, a move to show how increased U.N. sanctions have failed to halt Iran’s technical progress.

Our first line of defense against short and intermediate-range airborne attacks is the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3), which can intercept enemy missiles while in flight. Their proven track record is why they are also essential to the NATO effort in Europe to defend against missiles from hostile nations.

Yet, despite the SM-3’s impressive performance history and expanding capabilities that will ultimately protect our homeland from a long-range missile attack, President Obama has all but turned his back on the missile. In his newly released budget, the President cuts funding for the newest evolution of SM-3 (known as IB), which will result in 52 percent fewer missiles while commanders in theater have
consistently complained about shortages. The President’s $300 million reduction may also slow production, which could make the new missile delivery date of 2015 very difficult to meet.

The timing couldn’t be worse considering U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicted last month that Iran would be capable of launching a nuclear missile at the U.S. as soon as 2014.

But President Obama’s short-sightedness doesn't end there. At the same time the President chopped funding for the first missile that will be able to protect us against an ICBM attack, he chose to pour $224 million into a sophisticated and tedious missile program that is on life support.

The missile, known as IIB, is but a back-of-the napkin concept that will not be ready for deployment until 2020, at the earliest. In a bipartisan move this past December, Congress virtually eliminated the 2012 budget for the program. The message was clear: we have more urgent budget priorities and current threats demand we deploy a missile to protect the continental United States much sooner than
2020.

Apparently, President Obama did not receive that message from Congress. After spending millions on development, Obama has unilaterally decided to shift resources toward more complex future missile variants—a process notorious for being obscenely over budget and off schedule—while rejecting the Congress’ more sensible approach to fiscal responsibility and a more robust national defense.

President Obama’s decisions on missile defense will create a multiple-year window where a country such as Iran could strike before our new SM-3s are in place. By reversing course, not only would taxpayer dollars be used more effectively, America will be properly protected from enemies well into the future.
---------------------- J. Ken Blackwell is aa fomer Ohio Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is the co-author of the new bestseller: The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Club for Growth and of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.Tags:Ken Blackwell, Barack Obama, budget, budget bomb, accounting gimmick, spending increases, Disarming America, unilateral reductions, cutting military programs, threats, Iran, North KoreaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Citizens United: The trailer for the new film produced by Citizens United and directed by Stephen K. Bannon. "Occupy Unmasked" goes deep into the "Occupy" movement and exposes its origins as well as the radical ideas behind "income inequality" that has become the centerpiece of the Obama re-election effort. The film is due to be released Spring 2012.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

ARRA News Service - Protect Your Voice: The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity called on CPAC 2012 attendees to sign a petition that aims to grant bloggers the same legal protection journalists have. According to American Journalism Review's 2009 analysisthere were 30 percent less statehouse reporters then compared to 2003. While their grant has not been renewed to do the study since then, any reporter can attest to the continued cutbacks by walking into a newsroom.

Fortunately, a new wave of energized reporters has been filling those vacancies out of passion - many unpaid. These bloggers are dedicated to informing their citizenry of its elected officials’ actions. They are addressing the threat to democracy.

Because of this, we believe they deserve the same protections as reporters in the court room. We aim to protect the bloggers that are reporting on acts of government as meticulously and honestly as the journalist sitting next to him or her at the press conference. Citizen Journalists and Bloggers should not be penalized for providing a valuable service to our country. Citizen Journalists and Bloggers in every state deserve to be included in the state’s shield laws and granted Freedom of the Press rights.

Times have changed and it’s time for the law to adjust. Go to ProtectYourVoice.org to show your some post Valentine Day love for bloggers .Tags:citizen journalist, blogger, free speech government abuse, shield laws, protect your voice, promote accountability, transparency, protect source, access to public information, Valentine Day,To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

More than a month later, a new director is running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three members of National Labor Relations Board are conducting business—all in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, Lee said in an interview with Heritage following a speech Monday.

“He’s reading the Constitution in a way that’s manifestly wrong,” Lee explained. “It’s contrary to the text. It’s contrary to tradition and practice, and it’s contrary to logic.”

“This is not a partisan issue for me. I would be equally outraged if this were a Republican president doing this same thing,” Lee said. “Once this gains some momentum, this practice could be very destructive to the Senate’s prerogative of advice and consent. This is a power that doesn’t belong to the president. It belongs to the people of the United States of America.”Tags:Senator, Mike Lee, advice and consent, constitution, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, executive branch, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, national labor relations board, NLRB, President Obama, recess appointments, Richard Cordray, Richard Griffin, unconstitutional, VideoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Monday, February 6, 2012

By Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: The first thing the next President must do is return America to sustainable economic prosperity. This begins with four actions: two to balance revenue with spending and two to unleash America’s potential. He should initiate a national campaign for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, capping federal spending at 18% of GDP.

Second, he should call for fundamental tax reform via a flat tax with generous exemptions for adults and children in the home and only two to three deductions.

Third, on his first day, he should sign dozens of Executive Orders repealing unhelpful regulations imposed during the past four years, from carbon emissions to health care to finance.

And fourth, he should launch a policy for national energy independence, beginning on his first day by approving the Keystone pipeline and opening certain federal lands to responsible oil and gas development and proposing legislation for an “all of the above” approach, with clean coal, oil, gas, nuclear and renewable energy.

The second thing the President must do is tackle the greatest short-term threat to national security by addressing the Middle East. He must begin a comprehensive review of the multilayered, interrelated issues that make the Middle East a Gordian knot. The three essential elements of any strategy must be:

1) that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be allowed under any circumstances;

2) that America resolutely stands by and for a fully defensible Israel;

3) the development of a proactive and coherent policy regarding the Arab Spring.

The third thing the President must do is nominate the right people to the federal judiciary, especially the Supreme Court. On his first day, he must start vetting candidates for every current vacancy on the 13 federal appellate courts and immediately begin developing a short list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. The President must make unmistakably clear that seeing these nominees confirmed is a nonnegotiable priority and that the growing obstructionism of the past quarter-century — and especially the past decade — must end.

The courts concern all areas of national policy, beyond being of paramount importance for the social issues of abortion, marriage, religious liberty and gun rights. The courts play an increasingly central role in economic and security issues. He must declare originalism to be the official approach to interpreting the Constitution in accordance with the original meaning of its text and nominate judges who will faithful apply originalism on the bench.
---------------J. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. He is the co-author of the new bestseller: The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. He is a National Federation of Republican Assemblies board member and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Blackwell's article was also published on Time IdeasTags:Ken Blackwell, important action items, next President, economic prosperity, fundamental tax reform, flat tax, repeal regulations, national energy policy, energy independence, treat to national security, federal judges, originalism, US Constitution, conservative, elections, politicsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

"To be morally challenged, one has to have been born. Obviously the same can be said for a moral person. However, the moral person is not seeking the death of the "unborn" or the "elderly." ~ Dr. Bill Smith

Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service: While the following shared article is rather long, there was no way I could in good conscious crop it. Why, because the article addresses those claiming to be social conservatives and to those who should be social conservatives based on their faith. Also, it applies to those seeking to be "moral beings."

Is it critical to ask what has brought our Nation to the point that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius could even consider, let alone proceed with "scraping the conscience exception for health plans"? The Obama administration has again proceeded brazenly without apparent fear of retribution by the public at large or even by those who are morally offended by Sebelius' action.

The article's author addresses his first-hand view of the conflict within the Catholic Church which has aided the Obama administration's open challenge to the moral conscious of the church without fearing that such action could result in negative consequence from Catholic voters in November. If this article awakens people, it will have served a very good purpose, but that will not stop the questionable actions of the Obama administration.

Protestants on the other side of the church isle have the same problem within their ranks. In fact their less restrictive hierarchy, many even aid in their ignoring and / or failing to vote their moral conscious. Numerous Protestants like numerous Catholics have surrendered or subjugated their moral conscious to a man-created, and often perverted, social consciousness. Whenever one considers promoting death in the womb or in the hospital bed, or the re-engineering of marriage and the traditional family, or changing social structure to avoid alleged inconveniences "of life," they have lost their way to the liberal progressive agenda. That agenda then continues to expand to devour other individual beliefs and values like liberty, freedom, individual responsibility, pride, love of country, etc.

Within the Christian churches of America, thankfully there are those who have continually stood based on moral conscious based in Truth. Unfortunately, there are large numbers of "influential morally challenged people" who have gained access to power via the ballot box. These individuals do not permit themselves to be intellectually confronted by the morals of the church in any way that would stop them in their pursuit of social justice up to and including supporting death and harm to others. Consider these morally challenged individuals: Nancy Pelosi (Catholic), Kathleen Sebelius (Catholic) Harry Reid (Mormon), Chuck Schumer (Reformed Judaism), Hillary Clinton (Methodist), Barack Obama (Christianity/ Former Church of Christ), Joe Biden (Roman Catholicism). Tell me again, why are these people making decisions and taking actions that affect us and attack our moral conscious? by Streiff (Diary), RedState : As the implementation of Obamacare rolls into high gear, we’ve been given insight into how it will be implemented in general. On January 20, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would not exempt health plans provided by non-profit religious employers from the requirement to provide “contraceptive services.”

… Today the department is announcing that the final rule on preventive health services will ensure that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range of the Institute of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA -approved forms of contraception. Women will not have to forego these services because of expensive co-pays or deductibles, or because an insurance plan doesn’t include contraceptive services.

The category of “all FDA-approved forms of contraception” includes the abortifacients, like the “morning after pill.” At the same time I couldn’t help but note that the group of health plans provided by “non-profit religious employers” who do not support contraception winnows the field down rather quickly to those provided by either the Catholic Church or one of its social service or medical subsidiaries.

The best is yet to come.

By way of full disclosure, I’m Roman Catholic. I’m a convert who became Catholic with eyes wide open rather than a “cradle Catholic” who was born into the religion. As such I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the antics of many of our Church leadership. I write it off to equal parts cognitive dissonance and a pathological desire to be popular.

The Democrat party has been anti-Catholic in its political positions since George McGovern ran for president yet the priesthood and heirarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in America tend to hail from Democrat constituencies. So on the one hand the Magesterium is teaching very traditional social values while on the other it is embracing without even a hint of credulity every lefty scheme that comes down the pike.

For instance, in 1983, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops declared nuclear weapons to be immoral and weren’t terribly fond of deterrence either. By 1988 they had decided SDI was destabilizing as was the US linking a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan to future arms treaties. When communist terrorists were trying to create a people’s paradise in El Salvador, many of our bishops ignored what was happening to personal liberty under the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as they stumbled over themselves to create the “sanctuary movement”.

Without putting too fine a point on it but there was no daylight between the position of the Magesterium and that of the Kremlin on these issues.

Not that they are all commies or anything. But there were MOVEMENTS out there that had freakin Pete Seeger singing protest songs and James Earl Jones and Ed Asner at their rallies. How could you not be in favor of these things?

Similar stampedes took place on global warming and immigration.

This is where the cognitive dissonance comes in. When given the choice between seeming to endorse a religious conservative for office and seeming to endorse a heterodox leftist there is no limit to the contortions a large share of our bishops won’t put themselves through to help the lefty. To wit: by the black letter of the Catechism of the Catholic Church supporting abortion is forbidden. If a public figure does so this failure is compounded by “scandal”, that is, an action that could cause others to question their faith. The fact that there are very few bishops in the nation who have taken steps to discipline pro-abort advocates and politicians especially when they proclaim themselves to be devout.

The second strain is the want to be liked. For most of American history, Catholics were THE OTHER. It was a foreign religion practiced by all manner of foreigners who either couldn’t speak English (Italians, Poles, etc.) or who could barely speak it (the Irish, it goes without saying). What other religion still has amendments to state constitutions directly aimed at its religious schools?

Just when things were going well with JFK (another devout Catholic) in the White House, he gets killed and the whole counter culture begins. If there was anything less cool in the 1960s than being in ROTC it was being a Catholic who believed in monogamy and abstinence until marriage not to mention avowing any religion that did not use mind altering drugs. Being cool is still important and despite his views on abortion Obama, that epitome of coolness, was invited to give a commencement address at a Catholic university.

This mindset was most egregiously on display during the 2008 election. The Catholic heirarchy — and I have to digress here for a moment to emphasize that we have many traditional bishops in this country who have fought the good fight for decades — wanted to catch the Hope-and-Change wave and had a problem: Barrack Obama loves him some abortion. Not just plain vanilla abortion. He is in favor of partial birth aboriton. He is in favor of killing a kid who happens to survive the abortion procedure.

As first blush it looks like a strong statement in favor of life which would not have helped Obama, or any other elected Democrat for that matter, until one reads deeper.

34. Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote. This is why it is so important to vote according to a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among moral goods. A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.

35. There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.

In other words if you feel like the opposition to the war in Iraq or midnight basketball or furthering the ends of labor unions or any other pet peeve are “morally grave reasons” you can vote for the pro-abort. And they got what they wanted: American Catholics gave a majority of their votes to Obama.

Then came Obamacare which gave the bishops a real taste of what happens when you create a moral equivalence between universal health care and abortion. You get them both.

President Obama telephoned Archbishop Dolan on Friday morning to tell him of the decision, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The pair had discussed the issue during a November meeting, during which the archbishop “got the message that they could work together,” said the spokeswoman, Sister Mary Ann Walsh.

The issue was likely to form the “backdrop to future relations,” she said. “It’s too big to ignore… the elephant is tramping around in the sanctuary.”

An administration official on Tuesday confirmed the call was made on Friday and reiterated comments made by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the administration is committed to its partnerships with faith-based groups.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), a Catholic who supports abortion rights and access to contraception, said she thought the White House had handled the decision “very well” by being open to listening to religious leaders. “Contraception is about preventing unintended pregnancy,” she said. “I think that they did what they needed to do.”

So up until November Archbishop Dolan was being led to believe that he and the Obama Administration could work together and there would be a conscience exemption in the health care reform regulations and then he gets a call telling him that he’s been played for a chump.

It is really difficult to understate the cultural significance of this decision. If Congress doesn’t intervene and we end up with a pro-abort in the White House, which seems virtually certain regardless of how Obama fares in November, it is hard to see how this precedent will not be applied first to euthanasia, which seems to be the next big thing, and then to abortion. If left as it is, it really marks the end of independent churches in the United States.

The decision even managed to concern the Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne, another of the “smells and bells” Catholics on the left, or Catholycs as my friend Tom Crowe terms them, whose collective ass gets tired when confronted with the whole issue of morality.

One of Barack Obama’s great attractions as a presidential candidate was his sensitivity to the feelings and intellectual concerns of religious believers. That is why it is so remarkable that he utterly botched the admittedly difficult question of how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health care law.

His administration mishandled this decision not once but twice. In the process, Obama threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus and strengthened the hand of those inside the Church who had originally sought to derail the health care law.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS. EARLIER THIS WEEK COMMENTATORS ON MSNBC (BETTER KNOW AS THE OBAMA NETWORK) CALLED THE VOTERS IN THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE "CRACKERS". AN OLD TERM COINED MANY YEARS AGO TO REFER TO SOUTHERN RACISTS IN CERTAIN AREAS OF THE SOUTH---THIS DOES NOT SURPRISE ME. MSNBC IS BEGINNING TO PLAY THE RACE CARD EARLY IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR. HEY JOE (THAT'S JOE SCARBOROUGH) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT BUDDY? AREN'T THOSE IN THE PANHANDLE YOUR FRIENDS AND FORMER CONSTITUENTS. SAY SOMETHING BUDDY, PERHAPS YOU ARE AFRAID YOU WILL GO THE WAY OF BUCHANAN---THAT'S EXACTLY IT. HAVE YOU REALLY JOINED THE ROUND TABLE OF CONSERVATIVE HATERS ON YOUR MORNING SHOW OR ARE YOU JUST AFRAID TO OPEN YOU MOUTH FOR FEAR OF GETTING THAT PINK SLIP! DRINK YOU STARBUCKS AND QUIT PLAYING THE TOKEN CONSERVATIVE BECAUSE YOUR ARE A LIBERAL LACKEY!